Back in December there was a fire in my house located, of course, in the same room where my figures were stored. I'm pretty sure that majority of them were destroyed (re: melted) so as I slowly progress my way into the ground zero site I wanted to post some pictures of what I pulled out.

My first pull: Reissue Soundblaster MIB.

First let me say that the box was destroyed. It was burned and moist. The packing came of really easily, but the plastic within it was melted around the figure and parts. I had to snap if off the figure and it was extremely discolored.

Soundblaster with Lazerbeak and Ravage. The sides and bottom are melted. Lazerbeak's head popped off as soon as I got it out of the package. The only thing melted on him are the wings and the tip of his nose (not pictured).

This is as far as he will transform. The legs and hands are melted in place.

The plastic has pulled apart (guessing from the heat), but are still being held together.

Ravage's head is melted to the side and is completely melted out of shape (to where the head and tail are melted into place, but the legs move just fine.

i lost my entire complete collection of vintage Star Wars and G1 TF's when the roof of an attic caved in during a thunder storm years ago. that's why my collection is almost all Pre-TF's. take a look at the link right below. it'll show you that you can start over!

honestly, i was bummed when it happened and would be bummed if it happened again to my new stuff but, "2002stanggt" was right: at least no one was hurt.

and, i actually think the photos you posted so far are really cool looking. i hope you're not gonna throw them out!!!

billprestonesquire wrote:i lost my entire complete collection of vintage Star Wars and G1 TF's when the roof of an attic caved in during a thunder storm years ago. that's why my collection is almost all Pre-TF's. take a look at the link right below. it'll show you that you can start over!

honestly, i was bummed when it happened and would be bummed if it happened again to my new stuff but, "2002stanggt" was right: at least no one was hurt.

and, i actually think the photos you posted so far are really cool looking. i hope you're not gonna throw them out!!!

No, whatever I find I'm planning on keeping. If I manage to find anything else I'll keep posting pictures. I lost more than just TF toys (I had Dino Riders, SW stuff, Legos, Hess trucks, and among other things hockey cards). I saw the link and you have a nice collection even after losing your stuff.

I think most of my figures, at least the G1 stuff, is completely gone. They were either melted together by plastic or to something else (by plastic), or in some cases there is nothing left. I even pulled off a few of them which were melted to the rug.

This one is a nice mix of G1 and G2 stuff. The big one on top is Blaster.

These were in a cardboard box, which did little to save them. Galvatron was melted on one side, his back, and his head. I did pull out the Jetfire and a Punch Counterpunch from that box.

This was the melted chunk I pulled off the carpet. You can't really see it from this shot but Pretender Grimlock's shell has been melted away from the waist down and there is still a good chunk of Scattorshot there as well as a few G2 stuff. I don't think any of these can be broken off.

Reissue Grapple and Inferno made it since they were behind something else I think. The boxes are soaked.

I guess you can tell who this one is. It's a 20th Anniversary Prime. All that's left of him are his legs and a melted torso. The other one I had didn't fare much better and is hardly recognizable.

This bin had a bunch of backing from late G1 and G2 figures, but nothing could be salvaged due to damage. I'm not even sure I was able to get into the bin. The part you can see in was the side of the bin that melted away.

Not really transformers, but my Legions of Power were also lost. They melted to the shelf, each other, and also to other pieces of plastic and cardboard.

I did pull out some Robot Heroes, some movie figures, and a reissue Astrotrain. I didn't bring them out of the house yet.

Wow, that is utterly painful to look at. You could clean them up and sell the remains as "art", I'm sure somewhere someone will pay quite a bit of money to have these exclusive pieces of "modern art".Could help with replacing a couple of your lost collection.

robofreak wrote:Wow, I'm not even sure what to think about that. It makes me realize how fragile our collections are.

Now I think if I get the opportunity to build my own house, my showroom is going to get some special precautions to be as fire proof as possible.

So what are your plans to replace this stuff? I'd hate to think of the dollar amounts needed to do that.

I did have plans that once I had a house I would display them, but now my collection is much much much much smaller. The best precaution I can think of is to make sure the walls and ceilings have some fire rating since cement board and tile kept the fire located only to one area of the house. I also don't think it would hurt to have a fire extinguisher if the fire is small enough to handle.

As for replacing them, I had made a list to the best of my knowledge for the figures I had collected. The list I had included around 140 transformers from G1 to current, boxed and opened. With the list I included some prices (as for other items they wanted either original cost or cost to replace the item with a replacement or current model), but gave up after I reached half the maximum allowed by the coverage for collectibles and still had half a list of TF figures not including other things that were there (like Legos, gas station trucks, Legions of Power, Dino Riders, hockey cards, Star Wars figures, etc).

To replace them is possible, but even with what little I could salvage due to the policy limitations I do not think I can get it all back. It's like selling your collection and getting around 1/2-1/3 of what they are worth (like Pawn Stars). You just can't replace a collection without getting full value or at least majority of the value of the items so you can actually replace them.

So when you have an insurance policy, check your limits and try to keep a running list of what you have (how long you've had it with a current price of the item).

robofreak wrote:Now that I know this, I'm goig to go back over all my records and have the current values punched in.

I'll think I'll start a thing where every year or so, I go through and keep the values of my collection up to date.

That and plan for making an indestructible room for my collection.

Also, you should totally sell the melted figures as modern art. For all you know, some art collector might buy them for a high enough price in which you can replace the entire collection.

Art is weird that way.

Melted plastic looks very much like modern art. If the mounds of figures weren't melted to the shelf I would have liked to have taken them out of the basement, but I was stopped from spending all day down there with a hammer. The 20th Prime figures, at least one of them, has melted wires from the ceiling (I suspect) on it. I don't really know how that happened.

Keep me posted on making your indestructible room and for those who do not have lists of their collection I would recommend making one with prices (somehow I'm also missing MTG cards from my room , which I luckily had lists of so I know what I'm missing).